Arena Profile: Tom Tancredo

Tom Tancredo is a former Republican congressman from Colorado and candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008.

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Tom Tancredo's Recent Discussions

Police state politics?

Q&A with POLITICO's David Mark

Which party is more vulnerable politically on the immigration issue, particularly with the new Arizona law?

It remains to be seen. I've long said there were two guilty parties in allowing illegal immigration. One was the Democrat Party that sees all those people as votes, and the Republican Party that sees all those people – legal and illegal – as cheap labor.

Do you think Democrats really want to pass comprehensive immigration reform or would they rather have the issue to bash Republicans ahead of Election Day?

In the Obama administration they’re truly ideologues and they just may want to push this thing as hard as they can. I don’t know how many times Nancy Pelosi is going to get her people to fall on her swords.

The other variable is whether Democrats feel like the furor from health care is subsiding. Recognizing that the immigration thing is not as dead as they thought it was. They were hoping they could move forward with something that accomplish their goals and the public would not react with any great extent.

There's also the issue of legal immigration. When you bring in 180,000 people a month legally – mostly on job visas – you’ve got to wonder how that plays out and what it means in the grand scheme of things. Are they still taking jobs that most Americans won’t take, even when there’s high unemployment?

There’s a disconnect between people who live inside the Beltway and those who live in the rest of America. We’re talking about the leadership of the parties. The people out in the rest of the country don’t want illegal immigration.

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About the Arena

The Arena is a cross-party, cross-discipline forum for intelligent and lively conversation about political and policy issues. Contributors have been selected by POLITICO staff and editors. David Mark, Arena's moderator, is a Senior Editor at POLITICO. Each morning, POLITICO sends a question based on that day's news to all contributors.